Tonni Iommi from Black Sabbath reason for downtuning was the accident that damaged his fingers.....
>From Wikipedia... "Tony Iommi picked up the guitar as a teenager, after being inspired by the likes of Hank Marvin and The Shadows. He played guitar left-handed. In an industrial accident at the age of 17 on his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, he lost the tips of the middle and ring finger of his right hand. Iommi considered abandoning music, but his boss (who knew of Iommi's "night job" as a pub band guitar player) encouraged him to reconsider by playing a record by jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who earned wide acclaim despite limited use of his fretting hand. After attempting to learn to play right-handed, Iommi strung his guitars with extra-light strings (using banjo strings, which were a lighter gauge than even the lightest guitar-strings of the time) and wore plastic covers over the two damaged fingers. He fashioned the latter himself, by melting plastic liquid-soap bottles into a ball and then using a soldering iron to make holes into this ball, putting his fingers in while the plastic was still soft enough to be shaped. He then trimmed and sanded away the excess plastic to leave himself with two thimbles, which he then covered with leather, to provide better grip on the strings. Subsequent tips have been custom-made." The fascinating thing is that an industrial accident to a teenager in Birmingham should cause an impact on a whole music culture. That said the use of this downtuning is varied from a semitone to 2 whole tones and even beyond. Some guitarists use thicker string to compensate for the loss in tension and some do not. Also not every heavy metal band uses downtuning, for example one of the most important HM bands Iron Maiden, who have begun to use drop-d tuning for some songs in the last 8 years, still use standard guitar pitch. It just shows that music history can take strange twists, but it seems that certain themes recur again and again, the use of pitch as an important part of a musical aesthetic is one of them. All the best Mark -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gesendet: Montag, 30. Juni 2008 17:42 An: David Tayler; lute-cs.dartmouth.edu Betreff: [LUTE] Re: very low pitch David, Not impressed. Black Sabbath was playing at 370 and below, way before anyone else back in the early 1970's. Most other hard rock/metal bands tune to at least 415 or 392 - as they have been doing for a couple of decades. Truly HIP. ;-) Chris --- David Tayler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My French ensemble performs often at 370, this > includes specially > made keyboards, winds and strings, plus large lutes > at 370, which can > be considered "french pitch" along with "super low" > pitch of ~340. > Good evidence for both pitches from historical > keyboard instruments, > but other pitches must have been used, such as 392, > 408, 399, 411, 430, etc. > > Free listen: > http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/orinda-airs/hifi_play > > As a starting point for French baroque lute, on a > "French Frey", 399 > or 400 is a very good choice. I often find 415 a bit > too high, and > 392 a bit tubby due to the relatively small scale. > > An amusing pitch fact-- > Most HIP classical music is performed at 430, higher > than 415, even > though Mozart's tuning fork was 2 cents lower than > Handel's fork. > dt > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
